Should your company be on TikTok?

Appropriate AF. Oh, oh, oh, now I got to restart here. Now it's recording. All right, so don't get too excited. All right, so appropriate AF is a hashtag and a website that you have and something that you seem to put in everything. What the heck does appropriate AF mean? And well, You don't need to say the last word of that, that it stands for.

I mean, it could be anything. It could be appropriate. Amy's funny or whatever. No, it's a good reminder on those days whenever I feel like I don't have anything to create content about, that everything's appropriate. So everything is content. And because years ago I had some guy on LinkedIn, it was like, it's not very appropriate for LinkedIn. It's like, actually, as a matter of fact, it is. Because it falls in line with what I do for a living. So what's appropriate for me may not be appropriate for you, but it doesn't make it inappropriate.

That's a good point. And you're one of those people, as I look at your content, where you share a lot of content that is like personal-ish, I'll say, and more just like fun and clever and whatever. And like, I've got this, hey, I've gotta always be providing value, always be providing value, always be providing. And I have trouble posting stuff that's like not, you know, I'll be like, ah, is there any real value for the watcher here? But that's the stuff that gets a ton of engagement. So, so what are your thoughts on that when you look at content creation?

Yeah, so I get fun— I have anxiety about everything, um, so I try not to let myself get too hung up on value because I will overthink it and be like, oh no, it's not good enough, it's not, you know, polished, I can't do this. Um, so that's kind of why I run with appropriate AF too, of yeah, not everyone's gonna like it, but someone out there like me is gonna be having an off day and it'll work. Um, but I think there's both sides. You do have to provide value, but it's also not terrible let people see that, you know, the unrefined side of you.

So, all right, so I invited you on because I want to talk about TikTok, which just sounds like a strange thing for a 42-year-old male to be saying, um, that I want to talk about TikTok, but I think I've been very surprised when I've started to look at the data and that I, I would not be the only 42-year-old on TikTok, it turns out. Um, so, so I want to get to that, but before we do, tell us a little bit about yourself. Like, you obviously have built quite an online personal brand for yourself and you've got quite a career. Tell us a little bit about yourself and, and your background and what makes you tick.

Yeah, so my background— I, for the first half of my adult life, worked in a pharmacy. Loved it. It was all rigid and routine, and I was in a clean room by myself, which is just a big empty box. So perfect setting for somebody that's an introvert with some anxiety. Then decided for the second half of my life, why not just completely shake things up and go off course? And so I took a leap of faith into marketing with no connections. No, I didn't have a background for it, and my degree is in chemistry, so really wasn't set up for success. At all. Um, busted my ass though, like really worked at it and did really well for myself. So, um, now I am the VP of Marketing for the Atticus Group. And then in addition to that, I help, um, smaller business— small and mid-sized businesses with just setting up their marketing so that they know what kind of content they need to be doing and things like that.

So, awesome.

Where I was this time 15 years ago.

Yeah, I'd say so. Well, that's, that's a great story too, just in that ability to pivot and move into a new field. I think too often folks get hung up on, you know, past performance does not indicate future results, right? Like, we can make a career change, and, and, you know, you're still very young, but like a lot of folks start to get hung up in that. Well, I've been doing this for the last 5 years, last 10 years, it's too late to make a change. Like, it's not too late to make a change, and it doesn't take that long to learn skills if you're willing to put in the time and energy and really invest yourself. But that's not what we're here to talk about. We're here to talk about Payroll companies. So, you know, we were talking about what a fun little unique niche audience we have here, people in the payroll software and services industry and HR software and services industry. And we've had several of our marketing clients ask us recently, hey, should we start a TikTok channel? And so I was looking far and wide for a TikTok expert and I followed you on LinkedIn and I've seen a lot of your content. And then I toggled over to your TikTok channel and I was like, all right, She's got this thing figured out, at least, uh, at least for now. And, and, you know, we'll get into some of that algorithm stuff here in a minute. But, but should a payroll company, a B2B services and/or B2B software SaaS company be on TikTok? And if so, why? And if not, why?

Yes, absolutely, absolutely they should be. Um, because it's the TikTok is amazing because it shows the other side, the human side of a business, which is awesome because you can look and like Shopify, you know, it's just a web platform service. They have an amazing TikTok account and you go, what on earth could you possibly be showing us? And they debunk things. They go through and they're really good about going through. I'm just using them as an example. They go through and will find things where people are complaining or saying this isn't working. This is,. And so that gives them an opportunity to go, here, you're doing it all wrong. Let's show you how to fix it. Yes, absolutely. A payroll company should be on there because you have to think about it. Everybody, most people right now are either employees or employers. So they are being affected by payroll somehow. So your audience is there. There's no reason not to be speaking to them.

Yeah. And I pulled some data. So this is from last year and it's really interesting to me. And it was kind of what sent me on this road of wanting to talk to you. There's got to be much more up-to-date data at this point, but January of last year, 62 million downloads for TikTok. The age 30 and over represents about 40% of that audience. So age 30 and over. So that to me was very surprising. And then, you know, we had— we actually had a guy stop by our office one time. We have a couple of clients where we'll do, um, they still have their old school and they'll have the random guy stop by our office and be like, I need my paycheck. And there we got a couple of them still around. And this dude shows up and he was asking me how to download our app on his phone. And he hands me his phone. He's like, I don't know how to do it. And I'm literally downloading our timekeeping application for this guy on his phone. But I look at— he's got TikTok on there. So the same guy who can't download an app independently has TikTok on his phone and still needs a paper check and, you know, is working in the 1800s like a dinosaur. He still has TikTok on his phone though. So I was a little bit surprised by that, but it was just one of these little things that kind of led me to there. But you mentioned Shopify. What are some other brands you like to follow on TikTok that you think are doing this well, in particularly anybody in the B2B space, if there's anyone you know that's doing it really well there?

There are, um, Calendly does really well. Zoom, which is surprising because, you know, everyone I feel like has been exposed to Zoom in the last few years. They do really well on TikTok for the same reasons of here, let's take things that could be negatives for our brand and use it as learning moments, teachable moment. So I really love those. A lot of the car dealerships are automotive, are there. Who else do I follow that's a brand. I feel like most of my timeline is brands because they're doing so well. And now it's, I feel like now with the upcoming influencers, a lot of the beauty brands, L'Oréal, the dry shampoo that I use every day, they're on. So it's pretty neat just seeing things like that. There's, I feel like I follow more brands than people right now because they're doing such a great job at creating really interesting content.

Yeah, and I want to come back to that brands versus people thing. That, that's something I personally struggle with, and I feel like we've got a lot of, of, you know, folks listening that are, you know, we're a small business, like, so there's this overlap between my personal brand and the company brand, and in some ways you want to decouple those, right? Like, you can't grow a scalable business if it's on the back of my personal brand. Uh, but at the same time, you know, there's a lot of influence and we close a lot of deals where people like, oh yeah, we saw those LinkedIn posts, we saw those posts, you know, and they consistently are getting those brand touchpoints. And so, uh, well, I guess rather than come back to it, let's just touch on it. Like, where do we find that separation? And if you're advising a small business client to say, hey, look, you know, you should have a TikTok for Matt Vady and you should have a TikTok for Guru, or do you just say, hey, look, you should invest your time in one or the other? Like, what's your guidance when it comes to getting started?

Obviously I'm a big advocate for personal branding. From a small business point of view, I do think it's important on TikTok because TikTok takes so much energy anyway. You have to really have consistent content there. So if you're doing that, don't burn yourself out by trying to do for yourself and your business. I would say go all in on the business side. Because that way you're not going to risk having something blow up on your personal and go, dang it, I wish I'd shared that on my business page so it got the exposure. So I always say go all in on your business side, but make sure that you do nod to your business on your personal page. Like on mine, you can find some things that say The Atticus Group, some things that kind of reference back to my freelance things., but never are you gonna see on my bus— on my personal stuff, hey, here's all the banners for what I do. It's, this is me, this is my, I get to kind of come out and do my own thing, but then go back to business. Um, so that is, that's what I would recommend for a small business. Just, and so you don't risk burning out because that TikTok makes it easy to do that if you're not careful.

Yeah. What's the frequency like there? So one of the things, so I'm pretty active on LinkedIn, done a lot of training on, you know, kind of how to, to engage an audience, create an audience, all that fun stuff. Stuff. And, you know, daily posting is kind of the, you know, baseline information you're going to get on. One of the things you kind of have to do is to post, you know, once a day or 5 times a week or whatever, you know, somewhere in between. But what's, what's the frequency like on TikTok? I mean, are people posting daily? Are they posting weekly? Are they posting every 2, 3 days? Like, what are the brands that are really growing on there doing?

The recommendations that you'll see so many times, uh, and the people are successful, you'll see are posting 4 times a day at least, which is overwhelming. And so it's always interesting because the clients that I've worked with will come in and say, we need to start TikTok because everyone's on TikTok. And this brand, you know, they shut down their facility because they sold so much. You go, they've got a person dedicated to that. And it's these people are, they're still on the fence about, do I really need to post on LinkedIn once a quarter? And you go, we have on that consistency 4 times a day. Is what people are saying. I've tried 4 times a day. I've tried 1 time a day. I've tried once a week. It seems to me that consistency is really all that matters. So if you're a person that goes 4 times a day, it's terrifying to me, and I would rather set myself on fire than be on that platform, then don't do it. Just post 4 times a week or 4 times a month, but just make sure that you're consistent in that schedule. So which is the same for LinkedIn and other platforms of You're better off to do the minimum but do it regularly than to go all in and be excited and go, that was too much and now I'm overwhelmed and I'm gonna leave for 3 months.

So that's right. And that's the thing is like the audience doesn't come overnight, y'all. They don't come in a week. You know, you post 4 times a day for a week and you go, geez, I don't have 5,000 subscribers already. What is going on here? You know, it's like if you diet and exercise for a week and go, man, I didn't lose all 30 pounds already. Like, that's not the way it works, right? So you got to have patience there. And, and so, but yeah, because to me, you say 4 times a day, never gonna happen unless we've got a dedicated teammate there to, to put the stuff on. Now let me ask you that, so what's the repurposing like across? So we're big, you know, big advocates for repurposing, right? So like if I make a video that— this as an example, right, the video of you and I is gonna go on LinkedIn, it's gonna go on YouTube, it's gonna go, you know, probably, and then it's gonna get linked to a blog somewhere, and then it's gonna get linked off of a post, and it's gonna be, you know, we're gonna dice it up into multiple clips and put it on multiple platforms. Are you repurposing a lot of content for TikTok? Are you making content just native for TikTok?

No, I repurpose a lot of stuff for TikTok because— and that's something too that I would always recommend if you are even considering doing anything on TikTok— always make sure you're repurposing stuff because you can use that on Reels, you can use it on LinkedIn, um, you can get 4 or 5 pieces of content across platforms just in what you're using for TikTok. Because right now Reels are also getting just as much organic reach as TikToks are. So if you can do for one, you can do for the other.

So nice. And so what type of content are you suggesting that brands create for TikTok? Like, is it the how-to stuff? Is it the behind-the-scenes stuff? Is it the— you know, you mentioned earlier, like, it's— what is it? Who is it? Marcus Sheridan, the They Ask, You Answer, I believe, is the book. I think I have it and haven't read it. I said to me, it's like, yes, like we already buy off on this. Like I got the book and then I started reading it and I was like, yeah, we, we believe in this. Like client calls and asks me a question. Like the easiest thing for me to do is then turn around and answer that question publicly because that's, you know, easy content for me to create and obviously valuable because somebody that I'm— is paying me money is asking the question. So obviously people who aren't paying me money would probably have similar questions. What's your typical strategy if advising somebody on how to get started, what their content strategy should be on platform like this?

Yes, that's number one is go and do a Google search of yourself and see what people are saying about you. Are they, you know, the first thing that comes up is how do I do this? Answer that. And sometimes it is that that's a really long answer. Good. Break it up into a series. You know, every day we're going to answer one component of this question. How do we get started? Well, you do this first, then next, here's a video. So break that down as much as you can. Also look at what competitors are doing. Sometimes you'll see— not copy. Some people will go, okay, I'm going to do exactly what they're doing. No, don't do that. Look at what they're doing that's performing really well and see if that works for you, and then do your own take of that. Also, I worked on TikTok for Craftables, which is just— all they do is vinyl sheets for Cricut crafters. Like, you cannot get vinyl sheets for what? Cricut.

The Cricut, um, like the game cricket?

No, uh, it's a vinyl cutter. So we're thinking like very narrowed down, like you have to have this particular product to deal with them at all. But then they were also trying to, you know, wholesale for these small businesses that could— we can get this product. Um, so they were, you know, it started with let's do some how-to videos, here's how we use this. Here's a behind the scenes of how we're making this product for you. What we had things go viral though on, it was just here's a video of someone making something with this product. It's not teaching you how to do it. We're not getting in depth. It's just someone's making something using this product. And it was just like a here, inspiration for your next craft. Through the roof, like things went viral, you know, things are selling out. It was great. So things like that where you go, maybe just show people enjoying working with your brand. I mean, yeah, it doesn't have to be so complicated. Just if you were— think of who your ideal client is and then do exactly— walk them through the steps of what you would want them to do.

So that's a great point. So the ideal client, right? So how do you, how do you help your small business owner clients to identify who that ideal client is, but most importantly, stay on topic with like addressing content that's, you know, 'cause to your point earlier, like if it's my personal account, I might be talking about baseball one minute. I might be talking about standup paddleboarding the next. I might be talking about, you know, uh, deer corn, you know, 5 minutes. Like there's just any number. Yes, we've got deer in our backyard. It's my new obsession is feeding deer in my backyard. I'm not a hunter. I actually want them to just come so my fam, my children can watch them.

I don't wanna hunt them. I just wanna feed 'em and pet 'em. Yeah.

I just wanna give you as much deer corn as it takes until y'all start to trust us. And become a part of our family. Yeah, we're weirdos. But so the, the, uh, but so how do you keep that focus as a business of like, and also understanding, you know, look, you can make a TikTok for one group and then make a TikTok for, you know, for us, for example, we serve a lot of nonprofits. We also serve a lot of tech companies. We also serve a lot of the, like, what's going to appeal to the nonprofit's not going to appeal to the tech company and vice versa. How do you coach your business owner clients up on on understanding how specific content should be, and—

or do you? I do. Uh, I always recommend they pick a specific day for a specific kind of content. That way it's not overwhelming. You're not trying to do it 5 days a week. Um, for example, a client that they deal with— here we're going to do wholesale stuff, but also we provide this product for this particular, you know, employee retention and such. Good. On Mondays you're going to do content about employee retention. On Tuesdays you're going to do stuff about wholesale because there's a lot that falls into each of those buckets. And so if the mood strikes and you think we've got a ton of content, I can talk and ramble about this for hours, do it, record all of it and then break it down. One day a week you're going to show this part of it and share it across different platforms so that it's not overwhelming. You do stay on task because Mondays are my day for this. Don't think about anything else. It's just this. If someone comes in, you think this is going to be a great story for Wednesday, great, write it down, but focus on it on Wednesday. Don't get overwhelmed on Monday. And so that's kind of how I got them. And it works really well because it keeps them on task and it makes it so that each day of the week it's like a trigger of, oh, it's Monday, so we're doing this. It's Thursday. This is what today is. Keeps them going.

Yeah. Yeah. So, well, it's funny because as you're talking, I'm pulling up mine. So I do a terrible job of following this. But when I was putting together my little content plan. I have, you know, Monday motivation or analytical post, Tuesday, you know, a clip from the podcast, maybe some notes, Wednesday gonna touch on an HR topic, Thursday small business growth topic, Friday, you know, something geared towards the payroll and audience. And like, do I always follow that?

No.

But if I don't have something that was like, all right, today this is top of mind and something, then I can just go there and go, oh cool, I got a handful of things related to that topic that are easy to pull off the shelf and post about. And I don't have to spend, you know, I don't spend 2 hours a day on this stuff. I spend, you know, 20 minutes and that's it. So how do you plan your content? How do you think of ideas, track ideas? What tools and fun stuff do you use to keep up with? You obviously are posting a lot on multiple platforms, and if you're not, I'll post how to follow you and all that fun stuff in the notes. But, uh, But yeah, so share a little bit about your content strategy for you personally.

So I am very much, which this is terrible, but as much as I coach other people and do this, this is going to make your life easier. I am still very much a fly-by-the-seat-of-my-pants kind of person. So I have my plan and my buckets, but I'm real bad about just going one day a month and be like, here, let's just make everything. And then like you said, I'll just pull it from the shelf. I tend to make things and then just save them into my drafts folder so that I don't even have to think about, oh, I need to go to this folder and pull it. It's just already in my drafts waiting for one of those days when I have no idea what I want to do. And I'll save it on like my TikTok drafts, I'll save it on my Reels drafts, and then I'll just have a folder of LinkedIn ideas where I just got the start of something.

Well, that's awesome. I wish LinkedIn had drafts. That's such a pain that you like. I'm always copying and pasting everything when I'm 75% of the way through, cause I'm so worried that if I started building it out natively in there, I started making edits inside of their tool that I'm gonna lose it cause I've had it freeze up on me so many times. Yeah. Such a pain in the neck. Do you, do you use any, so you go once a month, you're creating batching content, is that right?

Yeah.

That's smart. And so the, you know, batching is just such an underutilized framework in life in general, right? Like there's a huge cost of changing, going back to that point earlier, if it's It takes me 20, 30 minutes every morning to write a post. If I wrote the whole month, it'd probably take me 3 hours. Uh, you know, that's less time. You don't need to do the math. I don't do public math, but, uh, that is—

that is—

but I know enough that 3 hours is less than 20 to 30 minutes a day over the course of a month. I know that much, Amy, right? So yeah, it's a great call there. And what are some other tips and tricks for you personally when you're creating content that make it a little bit easier get things out in the volume that you do?

I really love Canva. Like, I will advocate for Canva until I'm blue in the face. But you can go in there and you can save things, and they do already have a content scheduler. So if you're somebody that likes to not only have the content done but already have it plugged in and sitting on go just waiting for the day, um, you can do that on Canva. And you can do it through most platforms. I mean, you've got Pinterest, TikTok, LinkedIn, everything. But it's also great because if you have one piece of content, you're thinking this would work across every platform. You can easily just resize it so that all of your graphics, your videos, everything are perfectly formatted for every platform. So that is, I feel like, the easy switch for any content creator at any level. And please get Canva, the free, free version.

Oh, at very least. Yeah. And I would say you should probably pay for it. The account is like one of the best. Yeah, I mean, Canva is just— honestly, there's a reason they've got a, they've got a multi-billion dollar market cap. I mean, they just came in and did the very obvious thing that needed to be done in this space that is so, uh, easy to use inside their platform. I'm actually going to be curious to see what sort of competitors continue to spin up. I see Adobe's trying to come out with a lightweight version of their product to compete more with Canva. And it's just like they came in and just took the world by storm with that platform. And, um, continuing to— I'm, I'm excited also to see what they start doing on video side because the video right now is not great, but it's, it's helpful. But yeah, I think that there's a ton of runway there as well. Let's, let's continue to pull on that thread. I was going to come there later. Like, what are some of the other tools you use, uh, platforms, systems, you know, Canva, schedulers, anything else that you love?

Canva is my favorite for video content. So if you're starting on TikTok, it can be very overwhelming whenever you go there and you see these 19-year-olds that are doing these really in-depth videos and you're going, I can't do that. Like, I just, I barely have a login. What am I supposed to do here? InShot works really well, and so it can kind of guide you through. Oh, you want to do a transition, whatever you easily do it. It's very user-friendly. Um, so I use InShot and CapCut for both of those. You can have them on your phone, so you don't have to feel like you're a designer of any sort. Makes it easy. Um, what else do I use?

What was the second one?

CapCut? CapCut.

Okay. Yeah, InShot.

See, you can add in any images or stickers, things like that, which makes you look like you know more about what you're doing on TikTok. If you don't.

Well, that is the thing. You're, you're 100% right. That's the first thing that jumps out at me every time I go on there. I'm like, these are some damn polished videos for like, you know, every one of them. I'm like, I don't really want to get into all this editing, honestly. We tend to, you know, I'm going to take a clip of this and the, the level of editing we're going to do is literally taking the clip and uploading it to a Canva template, which puts your name and my name at the bottom and like says the topic at the top. Like, that's, that's my version of editing, right? So there's a lot better editing tools out there, but we also, you know, we're a lot like you in that Man, we're cranking out a lot of content. We are going to, you know, we've kind of got a, hey, we ship mindset. Like, we aren't a Fortune 100 brand. We are a community that ships product nonstop. And that's, that's our mindset here. So CapCut, InShot, like that. Never heard of either one of those. That's wonderful. Yeah. What else you got in your toolkit? And not necessarily just TikTok. Oh yeah, captions. What are you doing there?

I love it. For anything where you're doing video, even if it's just on LinkedIn, Everything gets better results if you have captions so that people don't have to necessarily let the world know they're listening to a video on any platform. So captions works really well. You just drop your video in there, takes 2 minutes, and even with my accent, it can turn out pretty good.

Yeah, we didn't get that in the episode. You're in Arkansas, so— right. Believe it or not, there are people in Arkansas, y'all. I got one on the phone right now. It's crazy. I know you didn't believe it.

Too many people know that. So closer to Memphis, let's go with Tennessee. But even with all the y'alls and things like that, it can knock those captions out really fast. PixelCut is my other one, and that's pretty much the arsenal that I've used nonstop lately is Canva, CapCut captions, and then PixelCut because you can remove backgrounds and it makes graphics really easy. If ever you come up with content, you need a graphic.

The captions are in CapCut.

No captions, it's just its own app. It's just called Captions.

You just do that. That's an app on your phone. I saw like I was 1,000 years old and that's like an application you get on your telephone.

Is that on the interwebs?

Is that— do you download that from the interwebs? Yes, that sounds Amazing. Um, well, and I'll go back to y'all for just a second. Fun fact, so I grew up in upstate New York, moved to Raleigh, North Carolina back in 2003, and I was tending bar when I first moved there fresh out of school. And some women came in and sat down at the bar, and I said, what can I get you guys? In New York, you call everybody guys, doesn't matter who, you know, men, women, different, they're all guys, right? And so they said You don't call women guys in the South. Like, you know, you, you say, you dress us some other way. And so I immediately from that, you know, I'd probably been in the South and North Carolina, debatable whether or not that's in the South, but, uh, the, uh, but from then on I've been a y'all guy ever since. And so it was like my first excuse to use y'all and I have used y'all, just abuse y'all. So if the, there's a lot of people listening to this podcast probably over the years that have gone like, 'Yo, this dude has like a northern accent and says y'all all the time and it's really driving me crazy.' That's your backstory. So there you go.

Yeah, it's the safest thing to say.

Hey y'all. It is. Yep.

Hey y'all.

What can I get for y'all today?

That's awesome. I throw it around like we say Coke. Like you could actually want orange juice to drink. I'm gonna say, do you want a Coke? So.

Oh, that's awesome.

That's awesome.

So have you noticed any differences or is there any sort of wisdom and guidance? A lot of people on LinkedIn, uh, my big, my good friend James Hornick, I'll shout out James here. I know he doesn't listen to this though, cause it wouldn't make any sense cause he doesn't own a payroll company. But, uh, the, he always likes to comment on every time somebody posts about posting on LinkedIn, he writes, this was another exciting post about posting. And, uh, but there— and I love it, he's the best troll online and it's so much fun. But there is a lot of posting about the algorithm, about when to post, about how frequently to post. And some of it may be true, some of it may just be what's worked for others. But are there any other sort of common— commonalities that are coming out on TikTok of like, hey, time of day, frequency, you know, type of content, like any truths? Or even LinkedIn that you're finding with yourself that, that are you know, either anecdotally true for you or, you know, you're starting to see progress with following.

Now, like I said, I've tried just about everything on TikTok and it appears that just consistency is key, which is the same on LinkedIn. But it's so funny because you'll have those creators that their entire platform is just, I'm going to tell you about updates in the algorithm. Here's what to do with the algorithm.

Yeah.

And it's like this. It's like we're talking about Oz of no one really knows. I'm just sort of making it up as I go. But just looking, I mean, just looking at TikTok in particular, you go, it's just a lawless land. It's just a, just be authentically you and be consistent and you can find success because we've got 19-year-olds that are dancing and getting 5 million views. We've got B2B companies that are, you know, reading negative comments about themselves, getting 10 million views. You go. There's no right way to do it. So just consistency is always key. That's, that's my rules to the algorithm every time.

All right, so old man yelling at cloud Matt Vady will not join TikTok because he knows that it's a conspiracy by the Chinese government to spy on all Americans. How do you overcome old man yelling at cloud Matt Vady's objection to said issue with TikTok.

Oh, you just have to explain to me, you know, you've got a phone, it's already tracking you. TikTok's not after you, your phone is. Um, you've got no— you've got a smart system in your house. Those people are the best because they're like, I don't believe in TikTok, Alexa, turn my lights off. I'm like, wait, hang on a second. Um, so no, TikTok's not trying to get your, your information or your, you know, what your face looks like any more so than the what kind toast would you be quizzes that they're taking on Facebook. So no need to be afraid of TikTok.

I like— there's like a— there's like bots that'll ask questions that are then go viral that are like common questions of what people might make their passwords, and then can like reverse engineer your password based on like your— you publicly giving them an answer of like, hey, you know, what's your favorite— you know, your point— what's your favorite toast? You're like, oh yeah, that's a common You know, security question. Yeah. Yeah. But now, and it's, it's something I struggle with because it's like, it is a slippery slope to your point where it's like, yeah, we all just give up access to our data and, you know, ah, it is what it is and I'll be dead in 50 years and who the hell cares who had access to my data anyway because I'm gone. Or, you know, the opposite is like, yeah, we're going to look back in 10 years and go, damn, we just gave up all that information and now X happened. So hard to say where that'll land, but, uh, you know, I'm not in the soothsayer business, so no telling.

I feel like there's much scarier things than who's gonna get my data. Like, you're gonna see what student loan debt I had a few years ago. That's— if you want to say that, by all means, but I think there's scarier things out there.

So, all right, so you've got a pretty substantial— well, first, before we talk about your audience and growing an audience, and they all kind of feed together, so you've got one video, as I was scrolling your TikTok that has like 123,000 views that is just you listening to a song, which, you know, once again, old man Matt doesn't know the song and, um, the, and just kind of bobbing your head with a caption on the screen. What's the song? First of all, cuz I did not recognize the song.

I don't actually know the name of that song. It's so catchy. It's some guy they were talking to that was in an interview that is very robotic. And I guess he says this one, he's like, oh, I used to rap. And then he just kind of like walks through this rap song. It's really awkward. And so that was, you know, fell in love with it immediately because I was like, this is the most awkward thing I've ever heard. Um, and yeah, I didn't even really plan on that one. That's one of those where you go, there is no— it makes no sense here because there's nothing happening on that video. But it did. It got like overnight 100,000 views. Views, which was insane. I think I have like 2,000 new followers because of that, and I'm literally just listening to a song. So you go, huh, there you go.

That's the kind of baffling stuff. Well, and this is, this is a lot of like, you know, you, you miss 100% of the shots you don't take kind of thing, where it's like, you know, keep throwing it against the wall and maybe something pops off and you just don't know. But to your point, we, we've been talking a lot internally about, you know, copywork. And copywork is this concept of like, look, I'm going to look at what Amy does and I'm going to mimic it more towards my industry and change some of the formatting and change some of the, you know, things to make it a little bit my own. But like, that's how I get good at it. It's like how we do everything, right? When you train it, when you train a new hire at your company, like you don't reinvent the playbook every time that they come in. They come in and they read the manuals, they put their own spin on it, they do all the training, they do it all, you know, to copywork. Work's no different when it comes to creating content. But it can be a little bit overwhelming, like, when you see that, you go— your page looks a lot like a lot of our stuff. I kind of laugh. I was joking with our team internally the other day. I was like, we got to get my face off so much stuff. Like, every— you know, you pull up the YouTube thumbnails and it's just like 400 different pictures of me. And I, like, I look at your TikTok channel and it's just you staring into the camera over and over again. I never thought— and I think it's just— and I'm like, I'm like, I know you got that same feeling I have when you pull that open. You're like, God bless. Like, but I mean, everybody Right.

Um, that a lot of small business owners struggle with too, of I don't want it to be my face because I want to be able to scale this past just me. So how do I do that? You go, you can, there's ways to do it. Um, but if you're just getting started, that's how I feel like that's the best way to grow, is let people see who you are. They want to see your face so they know who they're following. And then past that, like once you're at a good you have a foothold on it, then weave in other things. Then you're doing your behind the scenes where there's no faces, but show your face.

Yeah, and I'll give a good example of how that scales too. So there's a company, uh, you know, not to reference James twice in one conversation, I don't know if you know James from Hirewell, but, but they— Hirewell, he's, he's one of the partners, and his basically full-time role, as far as I can tell, is content creation. And they're about a 75 to 100 person recruiting firm And then what they've done though is they've, they've empowered and engaged a lot of their teammates to also create content and sometimes enforce en masse where they all know, hey, we've got these 5 job openings. Everybody next week is going to post on this day with this type of post. Not, not, okay, hey, everybody copy and paste this post and we all post it at the same time like big crappy corporations do. This is more like a, hey, we're going to make it fun. Everybody's going to put their own spin on it. We're going to create a whole bunch of personalities inside of our company because this is our marketing strategy is that we're all content creators and we're creating a ton of value here in the marketplace. But check them out, Hirewell, if you're listening. They're a really good company to see how that scales beyond the founders and how that scales beyond, you know, a personal brand and more into a company that's empowered a whole bunch of personal brands. So always love them as a good case study for that.

That's always really fun to watch too, is seeing those founders that do empower their people because you can tell the ones that are like, okay, here's the spotlight, it's all me. Versus the ones that are going, okay, we're all going— it's a challenge. Who's going— how can we do it different? I love watching those.

So, well, the challenge I always have is this, right? Is it's like you mentioned it's people and you're like trying to encourage, but you don't want to force anybody to like post online about the company, you know, it's like, or even like, hey, you know, you're going to update your LinkedIn profile to talk more about us. Like, no, you can't. You know, you got a delicate line to walk there. But it's like at the same time, if people show interest, give them the tools, give them the, you know, the resources to grow. Um, yeah. So let's see here. So we'll end on this. Um, so you've grown, you got more than 15,000 followers on LinkedIn, more than 8,000 followers on TikTok. I mean, well, A, how, and you know, B, what tips would you share with people that are looking to grow a community and an engaged audience like you have?

Um, to actually want to engage an audience. I feel like that's the key. So many people go, Okay, I need to get 10,000 followers so I can do X, Y, and Z. And so it becomes just a numbers game and it feels like you're in a numbers game when you talk to those people and you go, oh, I don't feel like there's a connection here at all. And so one of my good friends, Ariel Lee, she chimes in all the time about if you're going to connect, then connect and get to know people. And she's hilarious because she has like 40,000 followers. On her LinkedIn, and she can tell you every single thing about every single one of them. It's bizarre. Um, anytime we're talking about like, oh, so-and-so's hiring for this, she's like, oh, this person over here would be great because I just talked to him the other day. Um, and so I think that's— it's all about just building a community, you— and which helps you anyway because you don't want to— it should never be a numbers game because those numbers are never going to convert. They're never going to support your business. Buy from you or tell people about you, but the people that actually care, that you've taken time to— here, I picked you, I know you, we've talked. They will, they're going to support your business. They're going to talk about you in rooms where you aren't standing, things like that. So keeping that in the back of your mind, I think, is what has helped me grow.

Well, it's interesting as you're describing that. And fun fact, I'm connected to Ariel. I've never spoken to her, but one And one day recently, I saw a post you made and I was like, she must be in South Carolina. And I just looked at her profile and she's like an hour and a half up the road in Spartanburg, South Carolina.

So, um, if you send her something, she'll be like, let's go to lunch tomorrow.

Let's do it. Yeah.

Because I have to know you.

So the, the, the way that I think about that as you're describing, like community versus having followers is like, imagine you're at an event and you're standing on stage and you're speaking at people. Like, that's what the person who wants 10,000 followers wants, right? Like, they want to be up on stage with people listening because they're an expert, quote unquote. Like, a community is me down with everybody else and we're all together. And like, while I might be creating some content over here, there's somebody over there creating too. And it's not about me being the center of attention and me getting all the shine, right? Like, and you nailed it right there. And that's, that's something where early on in my LinkedIn kind of experience, if you will, I realize I'm like, man, I get more engagement, followers, contacts from commenting on other people's posts and engaging with other people's stuff than I do from my own posts. And I think that's kind of like, you know, barometer number one of like, are you actually there to serve and help and be a part of a community bigger than yourself? Are you there to just throw things into the echo chamber and looking for people to say, you're right, Matt, oh, we love you, we love you, you're so smart. So it's just, you know, stupid.

So, um, yeah, no, absolutely.

All right, so listen, this has been something, you know. I mean, I'm just gonna say that I appreciate you being a part of it. We're all gonna go start TikTok channels today. I'm gonna do it, you know, maybe me dancing, maybe me, you know, I don't know, maybe something.

I fully support that. Go learn the Renegade dance.

I'm gonna do the Gritty. Is that a thing? That's a thing I think I hear my kids talking about a lot.

My fun fact on that, I don't know what the Gritty is. I heard it the other day too. My optometrist, who is my dad's age, his son is on TikTok and was like, you can do this dance. If you can do anything, you can do this one dance. So he did. Blew up. He's got like a million followers. And so that's what now he goes by, like Grandpa Gritty. Like, I can't call you that. You're always gonna be Dr. So-and-so. I'm never calling you that. Who knew?

Oh man. No, but it's great. I love these platforms with video. It just does, to your point, it gives the opportunity to kind of take the mask off a little bit, give a little bit more of your true personality, your your true self to your clients, your, you know, the folks that you're around, your community members, those people that you've never really engaged with on a deeper level can see that you're just a dummy who likes to do the gritty if somebody dares you to, and that's totally fine. What other parting shots, pieces of guidance would you love to share with the audience today before we head on out?

Oh my gosh. I feel like this is where I have to add value. Just remember that you determine the right of your consistency. Consistency. That's it. Don't be overwhelmed by any social media platform. You are in charge. So if you want to post one day a month, then by golly, make that the best day of the month every month.

Come with that heat. Yeah, and I'll piggyback on that too, of like, quit you with your damn excuses, man. Like, I'm busy, Amy's busy, everybody's busy, y'all. Like, get over yourself. Like, if you really want to, you know, create the— get the wins, right? Like, which is something we probably should have got into at the beginning of this, of why do you even want to, like, you know, get active on social? Like, what have you got out of it? I know for us, I mean, it's just— I, I'm in the— one of the rare folks in our industry that just gets consistent inbound communication through the website, through LinkedIn, through a lot of different places with people that want to do business with us because we put ourselves out there. We're creating demand. And like, it's different than, you know, us trying to force ourselves on everybody out there. And this was a very this is something we've been working on for years, so it doesn't happen overnight. And, um, yeah, so I'll just say that, like, your excuses around every business owner is busy— like, get over yourself. And if you want to commit to creating good inbound channels, you've got to be on social. It's just— yeah, that's it.

Yeah, absolutely.

Well, homie, I appreciate you. It was nice to meet you in person, and I appreciate your time. And we'll, we'll share this with everybody. And if you have any comments, concerns, please just email Amy directly. I'm no longer taking any questions, so No, I appreciate you.

Wow.

I appreciate your time, Amy.

Thank you.